The express test created by Skolkovo resident company Rapid Bio can detect Covid-19 within 10-minutes and with 96% accuracy. The test works by detecting IgM and IgG antibodies. IgM antibodies tell of recent infection and disease onset, while IgG antibodies are a sign of late-stage Covid-19 or of previous infection. The test was approved by the Russian healthcare watchdog, Roszdravnadzor, in June 2020.
According to Rapid Bio’s CEO, Anzhey Zhimbiev, the idea to develop the test came into being following a monthly trip to China to meet with company partners in December 2019. Covid-19 had yet to spread across the world, and Mr. Zhimbiev fell ill soon after his trip to Beijing.
Screengrab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76zI4IBfy4&feature=emb_title.
“I was sick with something similar to pneumonia for three or four weeks, right through the New Year holiday period. Then I heard from our partners in China that Covid-19 was a big problem and that we should stop our business there until everything was resolved,” he said.
By February, he and his colleagues saw that nothing had changed and that the virus was spreading to other countries. That was the moment when Mr. Zhimbiev and his team spotted an opportunity.
“We saw that we had everything we needed to develop antibody tests for diagnosing the Covid-19 infection – the scientific knowhow, the laboratories, and manufacturing equipment. We began development, but our money was very limited because we are a startup. We wrote to the Ministry of Health and other Russian agencies, as well as to big companies and investors asking for help.”
The company's main source of funding came from the Boomstarter crowdfunding platform; in the space of a week, the Rapid Bio raised 2.5 million rubles (€34,000 approx.).
“We never imagined that we would get such a response,” said Mr. Zhimbiev, “and we now have more than five hundred sponsors from Russia and abroad as a result.”
The Rapid Bio team worked 24/7 for two months until they had a finished product. As things stand, the company is able to manufacture over 100,000 tests a month but aims to increase this to 1 million by the end of 2020. The company is supplying the domestic market but plans to export them to the CIS countries and possibly Germany.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are two ways to test for Covid-19: a viral test which is for detecting current infection, and an antibody test which can detect signs of past infection.
According to the CDC, using a high specificity assay will help minimize false-positive test results. The main use of an antibody test is to determine the prevalence of infection in a population over a longer time period. Rapid Bio’s antibody test is competitively priced and the company offers strong customer support to its clients. Tests are available on the company website.